Fun with marketing – my convention banner

I am so pleased to show off my first major marketing tool since the book got its cover – my banner for convention booths and signing tables. Artist Andrea Klores created a fantastic twilit look that complements the book’s edginess and theme. See it below in detail, and the final product at the end of this article – with a 6’4″ human for scale!

This is not the usual book marketing banner, and I thought it worth discussing.

My marketing education this summer included a weekend working at my publisher’s booth at Hartford’s Connecticon. Never have I seen so many people excited to see writers – especially in an enormous convention hall with all manner of vendors, and the many distractions of happy cosplayers finally getting the chance to strut in their incredibly detailed costumes.

Also, never have I seen people be so frank about their budgets, both of time and money. In the midst of so much choice, asking someone for real money for a real book means helping them find the book they really want…

Especially since, in our day, a disappointed reader has recourse for their disappointment: reviews. The small royalty a debut novel makes from an inappropriate sale is just not worth an avoidable one-star review, which like a cold sore reasserts itself forever.

How then, in the chaos of a 20,000-person convention, to find my best readers – and engagingly redirect those who simply won’t go for this book?

Maybe, by being very specific!

I went back to my social media exercises defining my audience, and tried out a few choice adjectives, which my publisher helped narrow down. Given the book’s title, and how these people all share a desire to be elsewhere, the travel-ad theme naturally suggested itself, and my artist ran with it.

You can look at your marketing as a chore, or you can look at it as the artistic expression of your business – especially when your business itself is art. But, like all art, it’s a risk. Take it intelligently.